Reporters should be shot
This has got to be the worst piece of reporting, at least in the sensing of damaging science’s reputation, I’ve ever seen. Check out the headline: Boffins create zombie dogs. Intrigued? It’s about scientists working at the Safar Institute in Pittsburg on suspended animation, where someone who is critically injured and can’t get to the hospital in time might be able to be preserved in “suspended animation” for several hours until doctors can treat them appropriately. It’s actually quite ingenious - they drain all the blood from your body, replacing it with an ice cold saline (salt) solution, which effectively freezes your organs so that they don’t deteriorate from lack of oxygen. By the sound of it, your heart would actually stop - you’re clinically dead. Then, they replace your blood and give you an electric jolt with the paddles to restart your heart - and away you go again.
So what’s the report on about? Well, they tested it on dogs, keeping them frozen for several hours before reviving them - hence, zombie dogs. Good grief…Sure, it’s a neat twist - but couldn’t they have come up with something better than “Boffins” creating “zombie dogs”? Do they think people don’t care that this is a technique that could save countless lives? People who are injured in car crashes, in warfare, anywhere where the needed medical treatment isn’t readily available. I may be cynical at times, but surely the world’s population isn’t that bored with science that they won’t read an article like that…? Concerning to say the least…
Oddly, while I’ve heard about this before (it was a lot more theoretical at that stage) there’s only a couple of reports about this on the web at the moment - it makes me wonder if it’s entirely legit or not. If it’s not true, that’s disappointing, but the basic principles are sound, I think - at the very least, it’s being quite seriously researched by several trauma centres. Then again, IANAD (I am not a doctor)! As BrettW points out, the picture isn’t exactly encouraging either. Nonetheless, the way it was reported was shocking - and it it’s false, all the more shocking. (But not necessarily surprising.)
Jerome Says:
What are you wondering is “legit or not”? There was an article about that very topic in the Scientific American of June (it was their cover story). I was surprised dogs were used for that kind of experiment. According to the SciAm article, “the physiology of dogs and pigs is so similar to that of humans”.
Joel Says:
Thanks for that! A brief bit of googling hadn’t turned up anything, and with so much dodgy stuff going around you can never be sure - I’ll have to see if I can find the article and get some more details on it. It’s pretty amazing!
kiki Says:
Whether or not it’s true is not the case. One assumes that it is true if the article is published in any reasonable publication. IT’s the method of delivery that is fully obnoxious. And, googling the subject doesn’t bring up anything worthwhile. I would have at least presumed to find the website for the institute where the research took place.
But, I’ve been thinking that if these dogs get to be called zombies for being ‘reanimated’, what about people who undergo cardiac bypass surgery? Their hearts get stopped, and their blood cooled while they are put into a hypothermic state. Aren’t they then zombies as well?
Joel Says:
Well, I’m a firm believer that you should never believe everything you read, regardless of the publication. (There was even a case recently of a major physicist submitting completely made up data and results to a big name journal - it was such a scandal!) I just found it odd that Google didn’t return any other results related to it - like you said, it’s suspicious when you can’t even find the institute (I eventually did - but they didn’t have any press releases or anything…)
I like your comment about the bypass surgery though! And heck, what about people whose heart stops and is restarted by paddles? Guess we need to define “zombies” better 
Out of fairness to reporters, AFAIK it’s editors, not reporters, who come up with the (occasionally stupid) headlines. The article itself seemed alright, especially considering the likely audience.
Yeah, that’s probably true, although this reporter used both the word “zombie” and “boffin” in his article already. But I agree - editors probably have a lot to do with it! I’ve got a friend who works at a newspaper and he’s always complaining about sub-editors cutting or reworking stuff to extremes…